GOP easily fends off tea party

Wednesday

May 7, 2014 at 12:01 AMMay 7, 2014 at 9:55 AM

WASHINGTON - North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis captured the Republican nomination yesterday to oppose imperiled Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan, overcoming anti-establishment rivals by a comfortable margin in the first of a springtime spate of primaries testing the strength of a tea party movement that first rocked the GOP four years ago.

WASHINGTON — North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis captured the Republican nomination yesterday to oppose imperiled Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan, overcoming anti-establishment rivals by a comfortable margin in the first of a springtime spate of primaries testing the strength of a tea party movement that first rocked the GOP four years ago.

On a day that was kind to Republican incumbents in three states, GOP Rep. Susan Brooks of Indiana easily fended off a challenge from the right, rolling up 75 percent of the votes in a three-way race. First-term Rep. David Joyce of Ohio had a slightly tougher time but was running well ahead of his tea party rival.

In North Carolina, Tillis was winning about 45 percent of the vote with ballots counted in 72 percent of the state’s precincts, easily surpassing the 40 percent needed to avoid a July runoff. Greg Brannon was trailing despite support from tea party favorite Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. Mark Harris, a Baptist pastor, was third.

Also in North Carolina, former American Idol runner-up Clay Aiken had a narrow lead as he sought the Democratic nomination to oppose Republican Rep. Renee Ellmers in the fall. A Democratic runoff was possible.

Democratic state Rep. Alma Adams was comfortably ahead for two nominations at the same time: in a special election to fill the unexpired term of former Rep. Mel Watt, and also for the November ballot in the heavily Democratic district.

Yesterday marked the beginning of the political primary season in earnest, and during the next several months Republicans will hold numerous contests featuring incumbents or other establishment figures against tea party challengers. Some of the races are in states where the identity of the party’s candidate might mean the difference between victory and defeat this fall, such as Alaska, Georgia, Iowa and Kentucky, as well as North Carolina. In other areas, it will matter less, including Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma and South Carolina.

Hagan, whom Republicans have made a top target in their drive to win a Senate majority in the fall, won renomination over two rivals with about 80 percent of the primary vote

Tillis scarcely had time to savor his victory over Brannon, Harris and five others before the Democrats unloaded on him last night.

“No one in the country has done more for the Koch brothers than Thom Tillis — cutting public education by nearly $500 million, cutting taxes for the wealthy while refusing pay raises for teachers and killing an equal pay bill,” the party’s Democratic senatorial committee said in a statement referring to the billionaire businessmen brothers whom party leaders hope to make into national whipping boys in the fall campaign.

The National Rifle Association countered for Tillis, saying in a statement of its own that “Thom has long been one of the most effective gun-rights advocates in North Carolina.”

Tillis ran as a conservative with the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Right to Life Committee and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney. American Crossroads, a group founded by Karl Rove, aired television commercials supporting him.

Brannon had the backing of Paul, the Kentucky senator. Harris countered with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, whose popularity with evangelical voters briefly made him a force in the race for the 2008 presidential nomination.

Hagan is among the Democrats’ most vulnerable incumbents in a campaign season full of them, a first-term lawmaker in a state that is ground zero in a national debate over the health-care law that she and the Democrats voted into existence four years ago. Americans for Prosperity, a group funded by the Koch brothers, has run about $7 million worth of television commercials criticizing Hagan for her position on the law.

North Carolina hosted the most closely watched race of the night, at the intersection of the tea party’s long-running challenge to the Republican establishment and the GOP campaign to gain the six seats needed to win a Senate majority in the fall.

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